NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite detects around one million lightning flashes per day from its perch high above the Earth. It is the first of four NOAA satellites that’s equipped with geostationary lightning mappers and is joined by similar satellites launched by Europe and China.

A single flash of lightning that stretched across the Great Plains, from eastern Texas all the way to Kansas City, Missouri, turned out to be a staggering 515 miles long. A new report in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society documented the new lightning record, which beat the previous title holder, a 477-mile bolt from April 2020.